


The Physics of Night Lights

by TinyTachyon



Category: One Direction (Band), Zayn Malik (Musician)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Anorexia, Bulimia, Eating Disorders, Established Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Famous Harry, Famous Louis, Fluff and Angst, Harry Has An Eating Disorder, Harry is a Little Shit, Harry-centric, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Larry Stylinson Is Real, M/M, Post-Zayn One Direction, Tooth-Rotting Fluff
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-27
Updated: 2017-03-31
Packaged: 2018-07-18 14:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7319524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TinyTachyon/pseuds/TinyTachyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He hungers and is left dissipating and disappointed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Trigger warning for depiction of eating disorder behaviors and thought patterns. No numbers,but read with care.

Little sisters, by default, are afraid of the dark. She palms me like the shaky-fingered dusk and I pull her close, kiss her across the part of her hair.  
"Hazza, why you throwing up?"  
I wrap a bit of her fringe around my ring finger. "I had a tummy ache, Daisy-Duke."  
"I only get tummy aches when I have too much candy. I've never seen you have any candy." She turns herself to face the two of us in the mirror, silver and exact as a nightmare. She doesn't look much like Louis, save for the eyes like August. She has good grades and good manners. She's not yet studied the futility of the suffragette hunger strikes, the only inalienable virtue; refusal.  
"Let's get you back to bed." I worry I'll spill her across the acoustic tile, but I manage to amble to the lavender dim of her bedroom, tuck her body beneath blankets and her hair behind her ears. I brace against the wall on the way back to Louis, My ankles argue like two war widows, leave me in an immaculate curl, the complete collapse of primary colors, my bruised jaw and bloody knuckles autumnal as cardiac arrest.  
The hallway looks like the inside of an antique snow globe, green and gleaming. I try to call for Louis, but he can never know about me living on my knees. He can never know because I didn't have a reason to stop eating, and I didn't have one not to.  
He can never know because he's grown up and I've stayed the same, throwing up before each performance, dissipating and disappointed.  
I wait for hours because he sang "Here Comes the Sun" twenty-two times during a three hour traffic jam, because he knows ghost stories and gospel songs, because he is my morning.  
***  
Louis spears eight pieces of parmesan asparagus onto my plate. I shiver.  
"Eat up. Everything is good."  
My stomach swivels.  
Everything is good.  
and it's terrible, too.  
***


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pretty please leave some comments if you're reading this :).

I love alone, clasp my hands behind my back, convince myself they have some sort of secret handshake. We dream between neuroplasticity and the book of Numbers. Louis snores and I remember my mother's perfect pleated pantsuits, pink as Poland, another thousand nights of imperfect symmetry, my stepfather's eyes replaced with moth balls.   
Louis makes a pinky promise with one of my curls, whispers my middle name.   
Not even October has such cold hands.   
***  
"I'm sorry love, but you have to wake up now." Louis says.   
"Boo-Bear made you chocolate chip peanut-butter toast. You better eat it or you'll hurt his feelings. It's very easy to hurt my brother's feelings." There's sun under my tongue. I squint. Louis traces the Libra Scales on my back, palms two scraps of taffeta.   
"Now kiss me, you fool." Louis says.   
"I haven't brushed my teeth yet."  
"Who brushes their teeth before breakfast?!" He says, massaging my scalp in congruent circles.   
"International heartthrobs with reputations to uphold?"   
"Of course."


	3. Chapter 3

Louis kisses my collarbones, rubs my knuckles where they rust, maybe making a wish. Together, we tilt, limbs tangled in our shared tour-bus bunk. We don't notice the ongoing argument of the others, not until Liam yanks but our rainbow-colored curtain, jaw clenched, thrusts six slick magazines into Louis' lap.   
"When were you going to tell us about Harry not fucking eating." He says, voice steady, hands shaky. Zayn massages Liam's shoulder, attempts to ease the tension. "Harry. Stand up. Let me look at you." I curl into Louis, squeeze my eyes shut, shiver.   
"No. please no, don't look at me, don't want anyone to look at me." Louis steps in front of me, shields me with his body, and my sudden heart shudders in thanks.   
"Louis, fuck's sake, move!" Liam shouts, shoving him. Louis shoves him back.   
"You twats don't know anything about eating disorder--"  
"And you do?" Liam spits. 

"Li--" I wince at the rasp in my own voice, the lift of the syllable that labels it a question. "I don't have an eating disorder, remember when the Enquirer said I slept with Barack Obama? I've just been a bit peaky." Louis' jaw clenches. My stomach swivels; he's never revealed any of my secrets; not my bizarre fear of sting ray's ability to fly, each and every night I've come to him clutching at the colors of my comforter, crying about some nightmare already fading to oblivion, my childhood obsession with the mysteries of mermaids.   
Louis carries the lump in my throat in his pants pocket.   
"Harry, love, call it what you want, but--I can't lie to them. You throw up in the middle of the night. You weigh seven stone. You're scaring me, here--"  
"Louis--"  
"Harry, Please. I can't hide it anymore. You certainly can't hide it anymore. Please, just--"  
"No!" I stumble, sway, fumble to the bus toilets, lock myself inside, holding onto my elbows, praying for the apocalypse of my hippocampus as four fists fall on the door, and they beg me to open up.


End file.
